There were a lot of problems in tonight's game.
Some of them came from Alfredo Aceves, who put Sox fans through an incredibly frustrating night, walking five straight batters with two outs in the second to give the Padres two runs, and then giving up two more runs with two outs in the third on three straight hits. He's been surviving despite some mediocre peripherals, tonight he put up a mediocre start despite terrible peripherals. Go figure.
Others were due to lapses in thought, like when Jacoby Ellsbury took off for second with the Sox down a run in the sixth. It made no sense to do so without Marco Scutaro being ready to run too--he stood at third, and Nick Hundley most certainly did not check him before throwing down to second--and with Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez due up with only a flyball needed, it put the tying run in much greater question when he made the second out at second. The Sox would pick up that tying run, but could have gotten much more out of the inning had Ellsbury not messed it up.
Often enough, though, it was just bad luck. That explains how the Sox picked up 13 hits, drew 5 walks, and scored only 4 runs. Perhaps no example is better than Adrian Gonzalez lining one off the glove of Mat Latos with two men on and nobody out in the third. What should have been an RBI single turned suddenly into two outs.
All-in-all, the Sox stranded 11 baserunners and could not hold onto a tie game provided them by Adrian Gonzalez in the sixth. Dan Wheeler, trying to pitch a second inning, allowed a leadoff single to Chase Headley in the seventh, and then a one-out ground-rule double over Jacoby Ellsbury's head in right-center. From there, it was just a matter of a productive RBI out to put the Padres up once-and-for-all, 5-4.
Oh, and David Ortiz stole a base. No, seriously, that happened.
This one is tough to swallow, given the circumstances, but all-things-considered not terribly indicative of much. The Sox go for the series tomorrow with John Lackey facing off against Clayton Richard.